Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (CIS1772080050)
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Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of Cisco's Vulnerability and lateral movement inside company's environment.
- Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
- How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
- How this cyber incident impacts Cisco Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
- Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.
Full Incident Analysis Transcript
In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Cisco breach identified under incident ID CIS1772080050.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Cisco's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cisco, the number of followers: 7281720, the industry type: Software Development and the number of employees: 95370 employees
After the initial compromise, the video explains how Rankiteo's incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score. The incident score before the incident was 339 and after the incident was 337 with a difference of -2 which is could be a good indicator of the severity and impact of the incident.
In the next step of the video, we will analyze in more details the incident and the impact it had on Cisco and their customers.
On 25 February 2026, Cisco disclosed Authentication Bypass issues under the banner "Critical Cisco SD-WAN Vulnerability Exploited by Sophisticated Threat Actor".
Australia’s Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), alongside its Five Eyes partners, has issued an emergency directive warning of a severe authentication bypass vulnerability in Cisco’s SD-WAN systems.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller and SD-WAN Manager.
In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Immediate patching, device inventory checks, forensic snapshots, full system rebuilds, and began remediation that includes Patching, system rebuilds, hunting for prior compromise.
The case underscores how Ongoing, and recommending next steps like Immediate patching, device inventory checks, forensic snapshots, full system rebuilds, hunt for prior compromise, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Emergency directive issued by ACSC and CISA for immediate action, particularly for federal agencies.
Finally, we try to match the incident with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to see if there is any correlation between the incident and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.
The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a knowledge base of techniques and sub-techniques that are used to describe the tactics and procedures of cyber adversaries. It is a powerful tool for understanding the threat landscape and for developing effective defense strategies.
MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis
Rankiteo's analysis has identified several MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques associated with this incident, each with varying levels of confidence based on available evidence. Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating severe authentication bypass vulnerability in Cisco’s SD-WAN systems and External Remote Services (T1133) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating remote attackers to bypass authentication and gain administrative privileges. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating escalate to root access in compromised SD-WAN environments and Valid Accounts: Local Accounts (T1078.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating gain administrative privileges via NETCONF. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Create Account: Local Account (T1136.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating adding rogue peers to establish long-term persistence and Server Software Component: Web Shell (T1505.003) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating manipulate network configurations via NETCONF. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Indicator Removal: Clear Windows Event Logs (T1070.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating stealthy, targeted approach...without triggering broad alarms and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating software version downgrade to escalate privileges before restoring. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation of Remote Services (T1210) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating manipulate network configurations via NETCONF. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Proxy: External Proxy (T1090.002) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating rogue peers added to establish long-term persistence. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- Cisco Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/cisco/incident/CIS1772080050
- Cisco CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/cisco
- Cisco Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/cis1772080050-cisco-vulnerability-february-2026/
- Cisco CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/cisco/history
- Cisco CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://www.cyberdaily.au/security/13265-alert-five-eyes-nations-release-emergency-directive-over-critical-and-exploited-cisco-catalyst-sd-wan-controller-vulnerability
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf